Correspondence — Prof. Edward Hull. 573 



C O ZEfcZS. IE S IE 3 O ZCnTZDIEI IsTG IE . 



THE AGE OF THE PENNINE CHAIN". 



Sir, — The Number of the Geological Magazine for November 

 contains a very thoughtful paper by Mr. Wilson, F.G.S., on the age 

 of the upheaval of the Pennine Chain or " Backbone of England," 

 in which he controverts my views regarding the precise epoch of 

 primary upheaval, and comes to the conclusion that it was Pre- 

 Permian, instead of Post-Permian and Pre-Triassic ; the conclusion 

 I had previously arrived at. He has very fairly stated my ar<ni- 

 ments and his objections to them. With the time at my disposal, it 

 would be impossible for me to recall all the facts and inferences 

 which were vividly impressed on my mind at the time I wrote the 

 paper on this subject to which Mr. Wilson refers. 1 



The arguments are there, and every one must judge for himself 

 whether they are conclusive or not. I admit the force of Mr. Wil- 

 son's inference, that there must have been some westerly uptiltino- 

 of the beds of the Yorkshire Coal-field before the Permian period, 

 from the well-known fact that the Coal-measures dip at a slightly 

 greater inclination towards the east than does the Magnesian Lime- 

 stone which overlies them. This dip is, however, but slight, because 

 it only amounts to the difference between the inclination of the two 

 formations ; and I suppose it to be due to a sort of sympathetic move- 

 ment which took place during the progress of the more powerful 

 east and west fiexuring at the close of the Cai'boniferous period. 



The principal objection to Mr. Wilson's reasoning seems to lie in 

 his statement that the Permian beds on either side of the Pennine 

 axis were originally disconnected, and on this he bases one of 

 his arguments for supposing the existence of the disconnecting 

 Carboniferous ridge during the Permian period. To this view I 

 entirely dissent, on grounds which I have stated at some length 

 in a paper which Mr. Wilson seems to have overlooked, and 

 perhaps with some reason, considering its title. 2 In that paper, I 

 call attention to the remarkable resemblance between the Permian 

 formation as it occurs in Lancashire, and the same formation as it 

 occurs in Yorkshire and Durham, which strongly impressed me with 

 the conviction that there could have been no intervening barrier 

 between the two areas. Mr. Binney, and, still later, Mr. Kirkby, 

 have shown that the fossils of both districts are truly representative 

 of each other, and deposited in the same general basin, although under 

 somewhat different conditions — the Upper Permian beds of Lan- 

 cashire having been formed in shallower waters and in a sea some- 

 what clouded by muddy sediment. Though quoted by Mr. Wilson 

 as one of the authorities for the statement that "there is no similarity 



1 Quart Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxiv. p. 323 (1868). 



2 " On the Evidences of a Eidge of Lower Carboniferous Rocks under the Plain of 

 Cheshire, etc.," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxv. p. 171. 



